Western Ghats tunnel road is inviting disaster, say greens

KOCHI: Taking cue from what happened on Saturday in Uttarakhand, where hundreds of people were buried in flash flooding in the Tapovan tunnel project site, ecologists point out that the proposed 6.8km-long, Rs 900 crore

tunnel road project

from Anakkampoyil to Meppadi, cutting through the Western Ghats, is inviting another ecological disaster.


The tunnel road aims to bring in more tourism revenue to Wayanad district and faster road access to neighbouring Karnataka. A recent satellite map image analysis by Hume Centre for Ecology and Wildlife Biology showed the

entire region

is susceptible to landslides and there have been several landslides here mainly due to intensive rainfall.

The location of the proposed tunnel is not far from Puthumala village, which witnessed a massive landslide in 2019. The project will span the scenic Chembra and Vellarimala ranges, known as the ‘Camel Hump’ mountains, which is one of the most eco-fragile areas in the region. Environmentalists point out that the hill ranges act as a gateway to the south-west monsoon and for this reason this is also one of the wettest regions in the country. “Both

Gadgil

and

Kasturirangan

committee reports had demarcated this region as ecologically sensitive. The area is landslide-prone, and to make matters worse, there has been intensive rainfall here in the last three years due to the impact of climate change,’’ said N Badusha, president of Wayanad prakrithi samrakshana samithi.

Greens also cite two projects, the 1km-long Kuthiran tunnel project in Palakkad and the Gap Road expansion project in Munnar, as examples of projects being undertaken without considering the landscape of the region.